Activities of the honey bee

The plants and flowers in your gardens or in the natural settings have seasons, have a life span, and have different things that are happening during the different seasons as well, and the same happens with the bee. During different times of the year, depending on what they temperatures are, the bee can be ‘doing’ different things. Life tasks of the honeybee are directly related to what the seasons bring and what is going on around them. 

The beekeeper does help make certain things happen in a beehive, but the honeybee could survive on its own without the interference of the beekeeper.. 

During the winter months there is little that a bee will do, as it is too cold outside for it to leave the hive for very long at all, and besides there are no flowers to reap the pollen or nectar from. Hives are generally created or built in an area where the weather, wind, snow and rain will not hurt the hive so the bees can survive the winter months in hibernation, living off of what is in the honey comb or in the honey card itself. 

As the spring months approach the bees are still in hibernation and they will not venture from the hive until the warmer days of spring are here to stay. As the weather moves to high temperatures, above fifty degrees, the bees start to wake in the hive and take short flights. 

The new flowers of spring start to arrive and the bees will take off for flights that will take them to many types of flowers, so they can gather the pollen and the nectar from spring flowers. 

The summer months brings a time that beekeepers are busy replacing the combs or the cards in the bee colony so continuous new honey can be made. Bees are using their time to collect more pollen, more nectar, and lots of honey is produced. 

The summer months is also a time when the bees will swarm if their feel their beehive is too small, in danger, or not protected well enough from the elements. It may be years before a colony of bees will swarm, from any area, when a beekeeper continually is updating and adding to the beehive and when the area is well protected from the elements of winter.

In the fall months as the temperatures begin to get cooler the bees will stay in the hive more often and production of honey begins to drop off but will not stop yet until the flowers have all died off and there is no more pollen or nectar to be found to make the honey. 

The bees will stay in the hive when the temperatures start to reach down to forty degrees, not coming out again until the warmth of a sunny day. 

For the beekeeper, this is a time when one would have to remember that the bees need the honey to live during the cold months, and the beekeeper can’t remove all of the honey. Some beekeepers will put blankets over their bee colonies to add additional protection for the hive during the coldest of seasons in the harshest times of the winter months